83 Days
by Neon Clouds
Summary: That last day that I remember is tied together with the thinnest of violet ribbons as the truth that night held also begins to slip from my grasp. But nobody tells me the truth, I imagine they're all too afraid it'll hurt me / In which Charlene loses part of her memory and there's something they're all keeping from her about what happened in those 83 days she can't remember.


**Heeeey, guys and girlies! So, first of all I'd just like to say sorry that I never did tell you guys about my trip to Magic Kingdom back in February and how much I loved it and how I cried when I saw the castle. Well, I don't want to bore you with details, but I incorporated a little piece of my trip into the story. So haha yeah.**

**This was originally meant to be Charbeck, but after a startling change in plot while staying up late last night writing in my mind (because my brain never shut up) I knew it couldn't be that pairing and I spent all day working on this. So hopefully you'll like it.**

**Well, this is a little out of my usually stories, considering I usually go with canon pairings. But I really do love this pairing so much, ship it real hard and just thin it's so darn cute. And I'd like to thank Magic Mischief (my internet best buddy) and her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks (my poetic sistah forever) for starting the revolution that is Jesslene.**

******I'd just love to hear what you all think about my first Jesslene fic so please R, R, and R (read, reveiw and request!)**

**And just before you read, maybe you'd like to check out what 83 protons is on the periodic table ;) Just a suggestion.**

.:Charlene:.

The hard wood cooled the skin of my back through the thin cloth of my shirt as I laid down, tracing the boards lazily with my fingers. I lifted my arms back, above my head; letting them brush against the smooth mahogany as my long hair tickled my forearms. Of all the places to stop and think …

Staring up at the ceiling, my eyes grazed carefully over the intricate designs made from skinny planks holding the structure together at its center. How strange that all I did was wonder if it would collapse would one give way.

"_She's fine." Willa hiccupped from the other room, unaware that I stood just around the corner, eavesdropping._

_A gasp followed; it sounded insulted, hurt, and so broken. "Fine? You think she's fine! Why No, stop lying to yourself and-"_

"_At least we didn't lose her!" The statement was shrieked out in a hoarse, breaking voice, before tears won over and I heard her sobs._

"_Maybe you didn't-"_

_Amanda had spoken up then, intervening, "Jess, just cut it out!"_

"_Me? She's the one trying to convince herself...you know what? Fine, whatever." _

_The girl had grumbled a few words under her breath, though I couldn't hear exactly what. _

"_Stop!" Philby shouted, "Stop blaming us. You know that it could have been worse. It could have been so much worse."_

_My voice threaded together, knotting in the back of my throat as I tried to figure out how I was supposed to react to this._

"_Shut up, Philby! This isn't fair and you know it!" Maybeck barked back at the others, filling the room with silence at this statement; the kind of silence that said so many words at once. _Isn't fair?

"_She's my _best _friend." Willa indicated starkly._

"_So? It's not the same." He stated tersely, something, I imagine, made her glare at him with those stony brown eyes of hers. They'd been so stony the first few days._

_Finn's voice carried smoothly, with certain insistence, across the room. "Quit badgering her. All of us, for that matter. We just need to be grateful nothing happened."_

"_Nothing happened. It never did. Not to her it didn't." Maybeck scoffed, something filling his voice like the sound of rain approaching. I was still stuck on that. _Isn't fair? _"But it happened to us, didn't it. She'll never know."_

_I had hardly the ability to jump back to the side when he stormed out of the room, coming to a complete, paralyzed stop when he met eyes with me._

"_Charlie," He breathed, in the single word saying a million apologies. I moved away when he tried to touch my arm, flinching again when he took another step. Those words were wedged into the place in my brain that sorted right from wrong, both representing his white love for me, but at the same time showing his black hopelessness._

"_No. You don't get to say sorry this time." I had growled at him bitterly, in a far more unforgiving voice than I'd ever remembered using with him. In that moment, I wished I could pretend everything that had happened to us never mattered to me; feign complete indifference to the relationship just so that I could win._

_They didn't know what fair was._

The rhythmic tapping of rain against the roof of the gazebo made brought me back to reality and brought me back to some many memories simultaneously. But the grey clouds surrounding me just took them away. The ones in the sky, however, did nothing.

It's been weeks. Weeks since they all started acting different around me. Weeks since Maybeck's kiss on my lips changed to a kiss on the cheek. Weeks since rainy days had become my favorite days.

Black stars burst in the corners of my mind, empty spaces that told me nothing about those supposed 83 days that I lost. That last day that I remember is tied together with the thinnest of violet ribbons as the truth that night held also begins to slip from my grasp. But nobody tells me the truth, I imagine they're all too afraid it'll hurt me.

But if it hadn't hurt before?

Another deep breath of cool air sinking into my lungs and brings back a dim gray light in the back of my head, yet nothing more. It's all still a memory and, even worse, a memory I can't remember. I almost laugh but remind myself that it isn't funny. At least, to them it isn't. It seems they lost more in the whole incident than I did.

"_I can totally beat you. Anytime, anywhere. Try me, Whitman."_

"_Is that a challenge, Char?" He'd grinned mischievously as the seven of us strolled down Main Street. We'd gotten permission, free to roam the parks for the day. It was a cloudy and a random weekend in the beginning of spring; not many people were even there to recognize us._

"_No, it is not a challenge." Willa had urged, an aboriginal glare shadowing as her eyes fell harshly on Finn. However alike the two acted as brother and sister at times, never had they fought. But it seemed she was ready to break that feat._

"_Finn." I watched Amanda's baby blues share part in a conversation with his peridot eyes. The others had stopped as well, not partaking in the silent argument, but obviously understanding it nonetheless. Suddenly, I felt secluded. The secrets they kept from me hung in the air as if the leaves on the highest branches of the magnolia trees. I wondered if only a harsh storm would get them down now._

"_Oh, come on, guys. Are you all scared I'm gonna out-run Mr. Leader over here?" I tried, hoping some light teasing could make those grey clouds stop closing in on me. "Don't worry. I'll go easy on him."_

_Amanda sighed, Willa didn't move. As my eyes worked across the group, they fell on Jess for a moment. She smiled, encouraging the competition. I could always count on her._

"_On your mark." She started, pausing for me and him to get into position at the Main Street's opening. "Get set…"_

_I couldn't get over the way Maybeck watched me. Gone with those butterflies I felt whenever he did, vanished in the gust of wind that must have passed in those lost 83. They must have been carried off to the absent land of that gray light._

"_Go!"_

_Finn and I sprinted, the chilled rainy air forming a blanket around me. We maneuvered through the meager crowd of people, that playful perfume too wispy, overborn by the darkness and caution in his eyes. I pushed the extra little bit that pulled me a few feet ahead of him. Almost at the end, ready to rub the win in his face._

_The wet pavement hurdled towards me faster than I could have perceived. I caught myself with both my arms, with enough support to prevent any impact. Steadying myself, I laughed aloud and shook off the instinctual panic._

"_Shit." He'd gasp, turning around on his heels in such a swift movement I almost believed he himself would slip. "Char, are you alright?!"_

_He rushed, crouching beside me with such concern in his eyes I almost laughed again at the absurdity of the situation –the fall would have hardly caused me to scrape my knee- if I hadn't seen the others come running too. There was worry and concern by the ocean in their expressions._

"_Guys, I'm fine." I played it off nonchalantly, in an attempt to get them to pull back. "Guess I'm a little rusty. Get you next time."_

"_Next time." Amanda scoffed inaudibly. With arctic eyes, she'd turned to Finn. "Could have damn as well hit her head." She added as Philby helped me stand, clearly something I wasn't meant to hear. The redhead gently ushered me toward the entrance gates, the others following. My quizzically stare that cast over the lot of them had gone completely unnoticed._

_I gasped when I saw Amanda slapped Finn across the face, rage one heavy block of metal that melted onto him cold. Hearing my minor outburst, Philby rubbed my arms softly with his tender hands, in a manner of comforting me. Though he hadn't seen them._

_Apology, not an identical crossness, was written across Finn's face. Self-resentment consumed me at the thought that my own problems had in any way initiated complications in their own relationship._

Every time I was alone, all I saw were Maybeck's eyes. All I felt were his hand in mine. His kiss on the forehead. His smile. And all I heard was that song we listened to in the car on the way back home.

It felt wrong to remember that last day before the 83 began. Like it was a lie, but a lie that held the truth on a chain around its heart. Like if they had to live with what happened, my last memory shouldn't have been one that felt happy.

_The next day, when we were heading to the park from the Frozen Marble, Finn had wedged himself in the space between me and the sidewalk's edge. It's still hard for me not to see that look in his eyes whenever one of them expressed their fretfulness for me._

_Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still feel his hand falling onto my waist –something he had worked to pass off as a casual gesture- by means of guiding me away from the street. That constant fear was anything but growing on me._

Tears traced my apple cheeks down to the floor as I sat up, my body trembling with a weep. I stood, wiping the pearls of misery away as I rose to my feet. Because I refused to be that girl again, the one who cried. The one who was afraid.

My teeth tore my coral toned lips, right through my heartbreakers smile, until I tasted red metal. Fingers curling around the wooden frame of the marquee, nails digging fighting to break the tough mahogany.

I racked my brain for those memories again. Fighting a losing battle. All those images were part of a locked photo album at the back of my mind that I could never find the key to. The more I tried to pick the lock, the most I hurt my chances of recovering the recollections.

Kicking the ground, I cursed the clouds, and the sun behind them, the blue skies and the gloomy, the gray light and the lock. For once in my life, I felt like I was part of the world again and the Overtakers weren't the only things that could hurt me. That just broadened the holes in my heart, deepened my veins until they were Mariana's Trench of anguish.

Every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was Maybeck's face

"_Come on, you know this isn't her fault. Or yours."_

_A distinct silence, one that spoke louder than anything that I'd ever heard before, followed._

"_Jess, please, stop being like this."_

"_What do you want me to act like?" She'd snapped. I scowled, wondering just how much I had hurt my friends, scared them._

"_You're right. Don't act. Just be you again. Please?" Maybeck's voice sounded so easy and consoling, brotherly. I knew that I was supposed to be furious at him, but I wanted so badly for that to be me he was talking to. To see if we still have those fireworks._

"_What good would that do?" Jess chuckled maliciously, more inwardly than anything._

"_I know you're scared that you can't recreate what you had. But maybe you can rewrite it. Make a whole new story." He offered, the wavering smile a separate decibel in his voice. "Just don't give up."_

"_You'd better have a damn good reason." The shorter blonde argued with him, a demanding attention-holding voice only she could manage._

"_Because you're Jess!" Maybeck stated pointedly, reassuringly. "You're the strongest girl I've ever met. And I know you're not going to throw away something as perfect as what you had."_

_How could he speak so highly of her if it was me who he was meant to be in love with? We were dating after all._

"_That's me, huh? If I'm always so strong all the time, why I once, just once…" She broke off midsentence, crying now. I could hear the tears in her voice, starting slow like the way the sun rose in the morning we stayed up all night at my sleepover while Willa and Amanda were still fast asleep._

"_Oh, Jess." Maybeck muttered, in the flawless arrangement of hope and sorrow that only his voice could hold. The same combination I felt when I saw that gray light whenever I couldn't fall asleep at night. "Come here."_

"_Y-you're the only one who gets it. You knew w-what it felt like." She mumbled, speech muffled by his shoulder._

_The rest of the exchange was lost, both speaking in hazy whispers. Green blackened my vision, indescribably irked that the two had found refuge in one another. He was my boyfriend. And she was my…one of my best friends._

"Hey there, stranger."

I turned hastily, startled, rolling my eyes at the person before me, setting their umbrella down on the floor. "Oh, ha ha very funny, Jess."

She smirked at me, the corners of her deep red lips turned up, like a crescent moon on its side. A red dream, I couldn't keep my eyes off that perfectly fitted red skater dress. How she'd managed to keep her perfect fishtail braid dry in the rain; there was only one answer. She was Jess, she made the impossible, possible.

_I was laughing so hard my sides hurt. In between fits of giggles, I affirmed, "Jess, stop." It was no use; she just loved to hear me laugh. Especially when it was like that, so genuine, so hearty._

_Amanda and Willa were laughing as well, mostly at me than at Jess's jokes. Everything just felt happy. Perfect._

"You always did think I was funny, Char." She smiled, that brilliant smile that felt so familiar. Once upon a dream…

"Yeah, well, you're a funny girl." I stated, then corrected myself. "Strange funny. I mean, no other girl I've met dances to elevator music. Or make goofy faces at red carpet cameras instead of just smiles. Or randomly comes over to your house with cupcakes in hand and proclaims 'I'm coming in now'."

She arched an eyebrow as if to feign insult. "Only when I wanted to cheer one of you guys up."

"_Right around the corner at the next light." I told her as we stopped at a red light, eyes locked on the full moon. "The lake's right over there. It'll be the perfect spot for the meteor shower."_

_The girls looked at me questioningly, pretending to be weary of my plan._

"_Are you sure?" Amanda mocked._

"_Because I remember you said that about the last lake we passed by." Willa added, teasingly._

"_Oh, shut up." I stuck my tongue out at them. "This is it and I just know it!"_

"_Last call, girls. Still want to invite the guys? We know how much you're just dying to make out with Finn and Phil-boy." Jess taunted, coming to my defense. Like always._

"_As if." Willa sneered. "It wouldn't be girls night if they followed along."_

"_Yeah. Just promise don't get all lovey dovey or I'm ditching you." Amanda laughed._

We both sat down beside each other. Friend and friend. The clouds were beginning to give way to a star-speckled black sky. "You still can't remember past that night, huh?"

"No." I peeped meekly. "But you know, I still remember everything from before then."

_I lurched headfirst suddenly, the car struck from behind, knocking us all forward. The girls in back shouted in alarm. Jess seemed frazzled but nothing much more. The impact hadn't been so detrimental, hardly a bump to the rear of the car. But enough to push us forth into the street._

"Like I remember that time Maybeck and I were fighting and you can right over to comfort me."

"_What the hell."_

_Turning to see if anyone was hurt, I heard Jess muttered something. Concerned, assuming she was wounded, I faced her._

"And the time we slipped away from the others and rode Space Mountain together. Seven times in a row."

I felt myself getting lost in a memory, trapped in the past for a moment.

_Headlights reflected in her eyes, as well as fear, defenselessness. Something flickered on her face that split second I caught sight of it._

_Then, violet danced across my vision. Green. Then yellow. I winced, grimacing in pain. Rain was upon me, thicker, sharper. Clear jagged pieces of rain. Then red. Orange. Blue._

"Charlie?"

_Black. White._

"Are you okay?"

_Gray._

I looked deep into Jess's gray eyes, swept into a heaven-sent chasm of wonder, of love. There was something in the way that she looked into my eyes that made me realize…I didn't need the past, only the present.

Jess smiled the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen, realization striking her too. And I closed my eyes, feeling her lean towards me, taking me into her hold. And our lips danced on top of one another's for a moment. Infatuated with the girl who held my heart in her imperfectly painted fingertips, I fell into the kiss. Falling for forever.

At night when I couldn't fall asleep I saw Jess's eyes, her gray light. That day at the Frozen Marble I felt the ghost of her hand on my waist guiding me, not Finn's. The song stuck in my head when I was all alone, that wasn't Maybeck's song. It was our song. The inamorata and the diehard.

"Jessica Lockhart," I grinned, watching her eyes glitter with joy. "I would like to officially ask you out on a date."

"Second times a charm."

Her hand in mine felt like the red roses, strolls along the beach, cuddling by the fire. It felt so real, so…present.

**Love it? Hate it? If you're going to bash on the pairing don't bother cuz I'm going to support it no matter what! I know the story's a little confusing but all the italics were like the past, most from after crash, but the last one was the crash itself.**

**Again, love you guys! Gonna be updating Wish next! Can't wait to see what's in store for the KK fandom on April 1st! Everyone remember to write Insider on your arms the day of! Congratulations to Ridley Pearson and to all these wonder fans!**


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